At what expense?

MPs’ expenses were back on the agenda this week, with the publication of the Cabinet Office’s expense claims since 2004 in the Telegraph.

Gordon Brown has blamed “the system” for the apparent discrepancies that have emerged, one of which related to his own expenses in 2006, when he claimed twice for a plumbing bill.

While Brown obviously believes the governance and structure of the MPs’ claims system needs to be overhauled, one can also wonder to what extent a decent IT system—both in ministers’ offices, and the House of Commons fees office—could have prevented such mistakes from occurring.

Evidently, keeping track of such a large number of claims in Parliament is no easy task, but a document and information management system could go a long way to prevent incidents such as duplicate claims and other clerical errors.

Few would disagree that the Prime Minister has had a difficult few weeks, and with the increasing public resentment over the claims system’s lack of transparency, an improved document management system seems a small price to pay to ensure that relatively minor expense claims hiccups don’t threaten the credibility and efficiency of the Government machine.
By Scarlett Graham, Programme Executive